Torn

Начало книги

This is not real.

“This is real,” I said, because the voice in my head ordered me to say it.

Because machines follow orders, and I am a machine.

This is not me.

“This is me,” I said. Because I was programmed to lie.

You see everything, but you get nothing.

“What you see is what you get,” I said, and I smiled.

You see: Perfect lips drawn back in a perfect smile. Perfect skin pulled taut over a perfect body.

You see: Hands that grasp, legs that stretch, eyes that understand.

You see a machine that plays the part she was built to play. You see a dead girl walking. You see a freak, a transgression, a sin, a hero. You see a mech; you see a skinner. You see what you want to see.

You don’t see me.

“So it doesn’t bother you, millions of people watching your every move?” the interviewer asked. She was sweating under the camera lights. I wasn’t. Machines neither sweat nor shiver; we endure. This interviewer had a reputation for wringing tears from all her interview subjects, but in my case it would be easier to get a toaster to cry. So something else was needed. Extra feeling from her, to make up for my lack. Shining eyes welling with liquid, rosy cheeks at opportune moments for anger or passion, a shudder for effect when we passed through the really gory parts: the aftermath of the accident, the uploading of spongy brain matter into sterile hardware, the death and reawakening. I had to admit her act was better than mine. But then, pretending to be human is easier when you actually are.

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